Black Dog
by Luxorien
Summary: Dean isn't going to take his death lying down. IMTOD AU. Um. I didn't realize it, but this fic is sorta finished. There's a sequel coming hopefully but I'll need some time.
1. Knockin' On Heaven's Door

**A/N**: I usually try not to write notes, but I feel the need to explain this fic. I know it goes without saying that writing an AU doesn't necessarily mean that I'm dissatisfied with canon, but I'm going to say it anyway. I really like what's happened so far in Season 2. As much as I love John Winchester (and the actor who portrays him) I think his death was necessary for the growth of his sons and for the growth of the show. So. This AU isn't a protest or anything. Just an idea I had that wouldn't go away until I wrote it down.

Also, the title won't make sense unless I write more. I hope I'll write more, but just in case I don't (which often happens) just ignore the title and pretend it's a oneshot. Er. Twoshot. Whatever.

**Black Dog**

_Hey. Take care of that car. Or I swear, I'll haunt your ass.  
-"Faith"_

**Chapter 1: Knockin' On Heaven's Door**

_There's no such thing as an honorable death.  
-Dean Winchester_

"And you're about to become one. The same thing you hunt."

Dean stared at the reaper and tried to find the words to deny her. They didn't come. It was creepy enough being temporarily stuck outside of his body; if it became a permanent condition he probably would go insane. Become what he hunted. Shit.

"You don't know that," he answered finally. "Besides. Sam would never let that happen."

He turned from the reaper's deceptively pretty face so violently that he stopped following flesh-and-blood rules for a second. He moved without thinking, without crossing the space between where he'd been and where he wanted to be. The experience took his nonexistent breath away, and he realized that he was already leaving behind the conventions of mortality. How long would it take him to forget what it had been like to be human?

He could practically feel the reaper's smirk against his substanceless shoulders.

"Shut up," he snapped without turning around.

"I didn't say anything," came the placid reply.

"You were thinkin' it."

"I'm only telling you the truth, Dean. I'm only telling you what you already know."

"Yeah, like I'm going to take advice from you. Hell, you probably work on commission. If there is a way out of this, you're sure as fuck not gonna tell me."

"I'm not going to tell you because there is no way out. You have to accept-"

"I don't have to accept shit," he replied angrily.

"What are you going to do, Dean?"

He turned back to the beautiful lie of a spirit, stared her in the made-up face. He cast about desperately for some way out, for something he could use to forge a third option out of the two crappy ones he had been offered. He had no idea what he was going to say until he said it.

"I'm gonna haunt my freakin' car is what I'm going to do."

Once the decision was made, there was no going back. The reaper disappeared and the hospital dissolved into a single thought. Violent emotion poured through him, the maelstrom of fear and grief and anger and love and hate that gives rise to spirits. He'd spent a lifetime controlling his rage when it counted, channeling it into a protective barrier between his family and the world. Now he unleashed every violent thought, every unhesitating, cold, deliberate emotion.

His transitional spirit-body was gone, replaced by a vague but far-reaching consciousness. He couldn't exactly see his brother, but he knew Sam was sitting by his bedside when his heart stopped. He knew Sam was calling his name and he wanted to reassure him, but there was something else that demanded his attention. Something going down in the basement of the hospital.

He didn't have to move. He simply _thought_ and he was there, staring at the dark design chalked on the concrete floor, watching in horror as his father tried to trade his own life for his son's.

"So we have a deal?"

"No, John. Not yet. You still have to sweeten the pot."

_NO._

When Dean's dying soul screamed, John Winchester heard it - and so did the demon. The Colt rose in John's hands of its own accord until the long barrel was lined up with the forehead of the poor jerk the demon had possessed. John's finger slid inexorably towards the trigger, despite his struggle to control his own movements.

"Looks like you're too late," the demon said. Yellow eyes flashed once with what might have been amusement or frustration, and then it was gone, leaving behind only a frightened janitor.

John's arms, under his control once again, fell weakly to his sides. His right protested painfully, but he barely felt it through his horror.

"Dean..."

His son's name left his lips in a strangled whisper, a plea, a protest. The silence, the emptiness in the boiler room was oppressive, and pregnant with unpleasant implications. Ignoring the wide-eyed stare of the man the demon had possessed, John began walking slowly out of the basement, knowing what he would find in the hospital above and dreading it more than death itself.


	2. Fire and Salt

**Chapter 2: Fire and Salt**

_In my time of dying,  
Want nobody to mourn.  
All I want for you to do  
Is take my body home.  
-Led Zeppelin_

For the second time that day, Sam watched a team of doctors fight for his brother's heartbeat. He waited for the rhythm to start again like it did before, but seconds stretched into minutes and then someone was calling a time of death.

It felt like one of those nightmares where a memory gets distorted, where something that turned out okay goes terribly wrong. He waited to wake up, to break the spell of sleep and find out that he was just having a bad dream about the time his brother almost died. He waited to find out that what he'd just seen never happened, that it was just his mind's projection of its fears.

But it wasn't a dream and he couldn't wake up. It was reality. And reality just didn't make sense anymore.

The funny thing was that he didn't see Dean as he was, too-still and already cooling. And he didn't see Dean as he had been a few moments ago, painfully vulnerable, but still vibrantly alive. He didn't even see him as he'd been on their last hunt, full of strength and vitality.

All he could see was his brother's bloodied face in the rearview mirror, his silent, empty, uncomplaining eyes.

_"No, sir. Not before everything."_

* * *

John Winchester couldn't breathe.

A passing nurse started to approach him, but blanched when he got a good look at his face. Whatever he saw in those dark eyes made him decide that the haggard, frightening-looking man leaning against the wall was Someone Else's Problem.

John Winchester didn't notice.

There was time, between the hospital staff leading Sammy back to the waiting area and the orderlies coming in to take the body - to take Dean - down to the morgue. There was time for John to be alone with his oldest son.

He'd known in the basement. The knowledge had weighted his steps, made a journey of five floors take a lifetime. He felt like he'd known all his life that Dean was dead, so why was is so hard to see him there, so still and pale that he didn't look like himself? Each second seemed like a year, but it didn't make it any easier to bear.

The tenuous sanity he'd crawled to after Mary's death eluded him now. His world had been built on his boys, on preparing them, making them strong. Dean had been so strong. Stronger than John himself, maybe.

_It's okay, Dad._

For John Winchester, the world ended the night his son died. He fled the hospital and didn't look back.

* * *

Sam tried to be angry when he found his dad's room empty, but he didn't have the strength for it. He no longer cared where John Winchester's priorities were. He just wanted him there. He wanted his father to stand with him, to grieve with him. He wanted someone to share the burden of burning - _god_ - of burning Dean's body. He wanted to not be alone. He would have taken back every angry word if it could have brought his father to him.

As time passed and the room remained empty, Sam shook with the pain of it, but he didn't leave. When faint shafts of light began sifting through the blinds and he knew that John wasn't coming back, he stayed where he was, curled on top of the tousled sheets that were the only traces of his father's fading presence. Finally, mercifully, sleep claimed him before the aching loneliness could.

_They're driving. Always driving. The Impala is roaring, a mixture of diesel growl and headbanging bass. Dean has the music turned up again, but he isn't saying anything for once. He just moves with the beat of the song, his eyes on the vanishing highway. Sam doesn't feel much like talking either, but it bothers him that he can't remember where they're going or why. He's not going to do this forever, he reminds himself, and is bothered that he needs reminding. When did the interstate start looking like home?_

_Dean is turning to him like he wants to say something, but there are no words. Just the sadness dimming the fire in his green eyes. Sam wants to tell him that it's okay, except he's not sure what's wrong. Why is Dean looking at him like that?_

_Sam's behind the wheel and the scenery on either side has halted. Dean is standing by the side of the road, boots digging into the gravel of the berm. He has a sawed-off shotgun in one hand. His amulet shines dully with the light of the setting sun. He's smiling, and it's a smile filled with music and passion and hunting, but there's sorrow too, and grief and guilt._

_Sam is asking with his eyes, searching his brother's face for an answer. The Impala is idling impatiently, but he won't leave without Dean. He won't._

_Dean shakes his head and looks like there's so much he wants to say. A faint whisper is all that reaches Sam, as if the single lane of asphalt is a yawning canyon of empty distance. Faint, but clear._

_"Don't burn my bones, Sam."_


	3. Burying the Dead

**Chapter 3: Burying the Dead**

_Seasons don't fear the reaper,  
Nor do the wind, the sun or the rain.  
We can be like they are.  
Come on, baby.  
Don't fear the reaper.  
-Blue Oyster Cult_

Sam buried his brother in Blue Earth.

It went against everything his father had taught him, but his father was not there. So he drove the body to Minnesota alone. Dug the grave by himself. Tried to pretend it was just another salt and burn, only without the salting or the burning.

_"Does this feel like any other job to you?"_

No. He was digging Dean's fucking _grave_. There was no way to make that okay. But somehow he managed to complete the too-familiar task without shattering or melting or bleeding out or any of the thousand ways his brother's death threatened to destroy him.

There could be no official burial for Dean. As far as the relevant authorities were concerned, Dean Winchester had died in St. Louis, the prime suspect in a series of brutal murders: an ignomious footnote to the parade of inexplicable brutality that filtered through the nation's newspapers and disappeared as quickly as it arose. There could be no death certificate, no headstone, unless it were under a false name and that Sam simply could not bear.

It was Pastor Jim who provided Sam with a solution. Pastor Jim, whose freshly scorched bones lay buried in salt three plots over. Sam had called in desperation, not knowing who would answer the phone or how they might help, only remembering that this church, with its adjacent graveyard, had felt a little like a home once. It was here that Sam had learned to see cemeteries as resting places for the dead and not just creepy battlefields that had to be navigated with shotguns and shovels.

Dean hadn't been afraid of graveyards because his father had taught him that they were just part of the job, like forging silver bullets or shooting ghosts instead of running from them. Sam no longer feared graveyards because a kind priest had once given him a few happy memories during a childhood that had been too full of darkness.

Jim Murphy's death had not knocked St. Michael's out of the fight. The young nun who received Sam's call instantly picked up on the true meaning behind his cautious, coded inquiries. She knew what was out there in the dark and knew the part the Winchesters played in the war against it. She was willing to make all the necessary arrangements. If she saw forgery and the improper disposal of human remains as violations of her vows, she didn't show it.

When he'd arrived, she'd been standing in the doorway of the church, not looking much like a nun in jeans and an AC/DC shirt that reminded Sam painfully of Dean. He could only guess at her story, but her sad eyes told him that it was as full of violence and grief as his own. He didn't need any freaky psychic visions to reveal who had buried Pastor Jim. He could tell from the way she quietly faded into the church when he started working that she understood his need to perform this last duty to his brother by himself, no matter how fiercely his mind recoiled at the idea of putting his brother's cold body in the earth with his own hands.

Dean's name could not appear on any records, but Sam refused to give him an unmarked grave. He had the stone engraved with a simple line drawing of a Winchester rifle - the first Winchester, the 1866.

_"God didn't make all men equal. Samuel Colt did." Dean is shoving cartridges into the breech with more alacrity than a ten-year-old has any right to. He looks up at Sammy and grins. "And Oliver Winchester made them equal at greater distances."_

Grave digging was a tough enough job with two people; by himself, it took Sam hours to dig the hole and fill it again. The sun was just setting when he patted down the last of the dirt and kneeled next to it. Cold November wind iced the sweat on his neck as he stared at his brother's grave.

He waited for something to happen, for some meaning to soften the harsh fact of what had happened. He thought about the dream, and wondered for the thousandth, gut-wrenching time if it had been only that. In the past, he had often fervently wished that all his dreams were only dreams, and not supernatural visions. Now he felt like the opposite sentiment was the only thing keeping his heart beating.

There was a moment when he thought he felt something stirring in the lengthening shadows, thought he saw a flash of light like two luminous eyes beneath one of the red pines that bordered the small boneyard. Then the feeling was gone and the deepening night was once again merely cold and empty.

Sam watched as the Hunter's Moon crested the horizon and lit up the world below like a giant second sun. It made the earth look as though it were stuck in a permanent twilight of grays and washed-out blues. A landscape devoid of extraneous visual cues, designed with purely utilitarian intentions. Sam suddenly ached for something to hunt, to chase down and punish. He wanted to _end_ something.

A steaming cup of coffee appeared in his peripheral vision and startled him out of his aggressive melancholy. He hadn't heard any approaching footsteps, but when his eyes followed the angle of the arm holding the mottled styrofoam, he found the young nun standing next to him. He accepted her offering wordlessly. The coffee was black, strong and bitter, but he wasn't feeling particularly picky.

The silence that followed was not uncomfortable, but Sam broke it anyway.

"I'm sorry. About Pastor Jim..."

"Don't."

Sam looked up at her in surprise and her eyes softened, though her tone remained firm.

"I just mean...don't act like you didn't lose him too. And don't pretend that your family is to blame."

Sam looked back to the freshly packed dirt.

"He'd still be alive if it weren't for us," he said quietly, his voice breaking just the tiniest bit because he wasn't sure he was just talking about Pastor Jim anymore.

"Bullshit," she said. And then, "No offense," off the look he gave her.

He tried to formulate a response, but she seemed to know what he was going to say.

"The blame for a crime rests with the criminal, not the victims. Always. Don't beat yourself up over what that evil son of a bitch did. You do that and you _stay_ a victim. That's letting the demon win."

Sam found his eyes drawn to the 9mm Glock resting in a well-worn holster on her shoulder. She noticed the glance and smiled tightly.

"Pastor Jim taught me that."

Sam looked away and nodded, not trusting himself to speak. A few more moments of unpressured silence passed before he took a steadying breath and rose to his feet.

"Thanks. For everything," he said, making a vague inclusive gesture with the hand that was still clutching the coffee. He realized suddenly that he had never asked her name, but couldn't think of a polite way to broach the subject.

She nodded once. "You heading back tonight?"

"I think so." Now that he had finished what he'd come there to do, all Sam wanted to do was leave, to drive away and keep driving forever.

"You let me know if you need any help tracking that fucker down," she replied as she turned back towards the church.

Sam took one last look at the fresh grave, clenching his jaw against the agonizing pain in his chest.

"I will do that."


	4. One Working Part

**A/N: **Many thanks to my big brother (not that he will ever read this) for not only answering all my stupid questions, but for feeding me DELICIOUS pot roast and letting me hold my baby neice while he did so. Anything I got right regarding the rebuild is totally due to his helpful conversation and suggested resources. Any mistakes are, of course, mine alone. And if you notice said mistakes, PLEASE point them out! I will love you forever

**Chapter 4: One Working Part**

_Wherever I may roam,  
Where I lay my head is home.  
Carved upon my stone:  
My body lie  
But still I roam, yeah, yeah...  
-Metallica_

It took Sam over a month to rebuild the Impala.

He wasn't even sure why he did it, except that it made him feel closer to his brother than he'd been since Dean flatlined in a Missouri hospital.

It bothered him for some reason that Dean died in Missouri. Maybe because it would have bothered Dean. Pussy state to die in. Kansas or Texas or Colorado would have been better.

Not dying would have been better.

Well. At least it wasn't Florida.

At first he didn't know what he was doing. Dean was - had been - the car nut, not him. He fumbled away at the twisted heap of steel regardless, because it was the only thing keeping the half-strangled hope from killing him.

And maybe. Just maybe. If Dean's spirit had a home to come back to...

It had been such a _vivid_ dream.

Parts of the interior were salvageable. He wasn't sure the blood would come out, but he wasn't sure he wanted it to. There was power in that blood. Dean's blood. Dad's blood. Sam's. Something about the mix, the connection, felt right to Sam - in a twisted sort of way.

But that was his family. All their moments of happiness were candles in the dark; all their humor was gallows humor.

_Dean frowns sharply at him, eyes darting between him and the road. "Our family's not cursed. We just...had our dark spots."_

_Sam can't help scoffing, incredulous and oddly comforted by his older brother's casual, child-like denial of reality. "Our dark spots are...pretty dark."_

_"You're...dark."_

He was trying to unbolt the front passenger seat when it happened. Movements that had been hesitant became practiced. Assemblies that had been baffling became intimately familiar. He knew every piece of hardware, every panel, every bit of trim. And it all came out, easy as breaking down his Beretta.

There were no more pauses to decide what to do, no more futile attempts to remember things that had never interested him in the first place. He went from one thing to the next, never stopping to think, just _doing_ because he would have time to think after, when it would somehow be bearable.

He stripped the car down to its frame, worked out what kinks he could. Chopped off half the damn thing and replaced it with a piece he'd scavenged from Bobby's yard because sometimes things were just too broken and twisted to be bent back into shape.

It was a Frankenstein car, cobbled together from the original shattered carcass, with pieces from other corpses welded on to replace what couldn't be fixed. And all the while he felt another set of hands guiding his own, could almost make out the words of the voice that whispered in the back of his mind, nudging him in all the right directions, filling in the gaps in his knowledge.

He worked like a man possessed, and maybe he was. He wasn't sure if the force driving him was of his own making or not, didn't care enough to stop and figure it out. He lost himself in the methodical operation of the engine hoist, the rotisserie, the acetylene torch. The sweat, the sparks, the grease, it was all he was. He gave himself up to the labor, collapsing on Bobby's couch only when he was too exhausted to go on, waking as soon as his body would let him.

He machined whatever he could, replaced what he couldn't. Painstakingly cleaned and refinished and primed and painted. Took every precaution while he did the body work, reinstalled the interior with the softest of touches. He tore apart no less than six junked Impalas and maxed out three credit cards.

Then the doing was done, and Dean's baby was sitting there, chrome gleaming in the winter sun like she'd never been totaled, fresh paint and solid welds hiding the damage underneath.

Everything sort of came crashing down on Sam in that moment, the weeks of purposely not thinking about the only thing he could think about, of holding his insides together, blood seeping through the walls he'd built in his mind.

He couldn't stand it.

He needed to move, so he popped the truck, opened the freshly restored compartment underneath. Realized he had nothing to prop it open with. Let it fall with a thump. Collected the guns and cans of salt and EMF meters from the house, dumped them inside.

_"It's never gonna be over," Dean says, his eyes on his gun, avoiding Sam's gaze. "There's gonna be others. There's always gonna be somethin' to hunt."_

Sam knew then that he'd never go back to school, never marry his girl (_she's dead_) and have that apple pie.

The idea of returning to that world was obscene, not just because he hadn't killed the demon, but because evil had taken something from him (_too much_) that couldn't be replaced, not by revenge, not by anything. No amount of tweaking would make him fit in the places he might have before. His life had to scrapped, abandoned, replaced with something else.

Suddenly a lot of the things Dean had said to him in the past year were starting to make horrible sense. A deep, aching sadness rose in him, and he knew somehow that the feeling wasn't his own - not entirely.

The silence of the automotive graveyard was interrupted by the squealing wail of an EMF. Sam lifted the trunk and sorted through the scattered shotguns and pistols, knives and ammunition. He pushed aside a few bottles of holy water, overturned a box of buckshot, a canister of salt. He picked the EMF out of the pile, took a step back, and stared at it as it screeched. Slowly, hesitantly, he let his eyes drift to the Impala.

The tension, the expectation, the bare, unutterable hope was so great that he nearly jumped when the radio turned itself on with a click and "Back in Black" started screaming from the speakers. Sam scoffed incredulously, looking from the car to the still-screaming EMF and back.

The Impala growled to life as he put his fingers on the hood, idling with all the perfect precision that attention and determination could drive into its battered parts. He could feel Dean at once, just as he'd felt him that first time in the hospital, as if he was just out of sight somewhere.

His smile was a Winchester smile, hiding the aching despair beneath, taking the smallest solace, the briefest moment and expanding it until it filled all the empty places left by what the darkness had stolen away. Things could never be the same, but they weren't over either.

Sam got behind the wheel.


	5. Bleak Midwinter

**A/N: **The stuff about St. Barbara is true. Swear to God.

**Chapter 5: Bleak Midwinter**

_Yes, they're sharing a drink they call loneliness,  
But it's better than drinking alone.  
-Billy Joel_

Sam had forgotten about Christmas.

He sat in the Impala, snowflakes melting as they drifted onto the hood, and looked.

Wreaths on the heavy wooden doors of the church, fragrant boughs of local pines slashed with bright red ribbons. Trees edging the drive, strung with glittering white lights that bobbed to the rhythm of the frigid breeze. A lot packed with cars just starting to gather thin gauzy layers. Faint singing making its way through the thin stained glass and out into the night.

It was so...normal. Sam used to crave normal. He'd never had a real Christmas, not that he remembered, but he knew what they were supposed to be like. Lights and pine needles and homecooked food. He'd spent a Christmas with Jess's family once and it had been like that: decorations everywhere, food enough to feed an army, noisy conversations in every room, a house packed so full of family there was barely room to sit down.

_Sam steps out onto the porch, shoving his hands into his jeans and exhaling a frosty cloud of vapor. After the incredible heat inside, he doesn't feel the Oregon winter as sharply._

_He takes a minute to listen to the silence. It's not that he minds the noise. On the contrary. But there's an ache deep in the pit of his stomach and he can't tell if it's guilt or homesickness._

_He loves Jess. He loves the life he has with her. This is what he's always wanted and every day he thinks about how lucky he is to have it._

_Except it wasn't luck that laboriously filled out application after application. Or maintained a 3.8 GPA despite multiple high schools. Or finally stood up to John Winchester and walked away from hunting forever._

_Now, surrounded by the kind of huge, intact family he always wished for, all he can think about is the tiny, broken one he left behind. He thinks of John and Dean in some shithole motel, cleaning their guns. Or in a cemetery, digging graves and burning bones._

_He remembers saving quarters and dimes and precious dollar bills until he had enough to buy a Hendrix tape for Dean. Remembers how his brother always gave him normal for Christmas: candy bars and cartoons and even a tree (of sorts) once. And all the while insisting that it was a stupid holiday and there was no point in celebrating it anyway._

_"Sam? Everything okay?"_

_He glances over his shoulder at Jess, who is standing in the doorway eyeing him anxiously. She can guess he's thinking about his family again, but she's not going to pressure him because she knows he won't want to talk about it, but she can't help giving him the opportunity to say something, just in case, and god, oh god, he loves her..._

_"Yeah." His smile is sincere, if a bit sad. He follows her back inside._

Sam reached up reflexively to touch the amulet dangling from the rearview mirror and felt Dean's faint presence stir in response.

A figure slipped out of the church and the singing was briefly clear before the thick door eased itself closed. It took Sam a moment to recognize the conservatively dressed nun as the same one from his first visit. He wondered if she was packing under all that heavy black cloth and what the parishioners would think if they knew.

"Are you going to come in, or are you just stalking somebody tonight?" she asked as he put down the window.

"Sorry. I should have called. Didn't know there were services tonight..." Yes. Because what kind of Catholic church had services on Christmas Eve? Sam resisted a sudden urge to plant his face into the steering column. It didn't help that Pastor Jim would have found this hilarious.

A wry smile. "We both know demons don't celebrate Christmas. Why don't you come inside and we can talk?"

"No, really, it can wait until after. I'll just..."

"Sit out here in the cold? You don't have to go to the Mass if you don't want to. The rectory's empty. And heated."

Her eyes were friendly. And maybe a little lonely. _The rectory's empty._ And Sam couldn't explain that he didn't want to spend one more second away from the Impala than he absolutely had to. So he knew he was going to accept her invitation.

But with his reluctance to leave the car, Sam's vague sense of his brother grew stronger. Dean didn't like it when Sam clung to the car. He had, in fact, forcibly ejected Sam from it several times. Sam knew it wasn't exactly healthy to sleep in the backseat when there were perfectly good beds available, but he thought it was a bit hypocritical of his older brother to object to this behavior. Dean was the one who was so freaking clingy he refused to stay buried, for Christ's sake.

And _that_ thought was why Sam found himself blushing furiously and practically bolting out the door to escape the sudden stream of explicit images that his not-quite-dead brother was pouring into his mind. Sam _knew_ there was no way Dean had seen the nun naked, but it was freaking unbelievable how detailed his imagination was. And what made it worse was the unmistakable impression that Dean would have totally hit on her if he hadn't been inconvenienced by that whole dead thing.

"You're right. It _is_ pretty cold out here," Sam offered.

The nun's puzzled, amused glance lingered on him for a second before she turned towards the church. As Sam followed, he felt Dean's laughter like a memory of mirth fading gently as Sam's distance from the car increased.

* * *

Five minutes.

That was how long Sam managed to sit in the warm kitchen of the rectory with his cup of coffee.

It was the emptiness that got to him. It had been a while since he'd seen Pastor Jim, but the memories were strong and good and not quite enough to fill the silence.

Sam was sick of silence. He avoided it whenever he could. So he gulped down the rest of his attempted latte (Jim Murphy had never believed in non-alcoholic additions to coffee) and tiptoed down the corridor and into the church.

He entered a nave that was all lit up with fire and song. There was light everywhere, both candle and electric. A soprano with more enthusiasm than pitch was wrestling some sort of hymn.

_St. Michael, pray for us. St. Gabriel, pray for us. St. Raphael, pray for us. All you holy angels and archangels, pray for us..._

Sam found it surprisingly easy to blend in. He wasn't the only one standing or wearing jeans. The heat from so many bodies pressed so close together reminded him of Jess's family in Oregon and he swallowed. He was taken with a sudden, strong yearning for the safety of the Impala, but he knew how Dean's spirit would feel about that.

_St. Peter, pray for us. St. Paul, pray for us. St. Andrew, pray for us..._

No empty spaces here. The place was splashed with green and red, suffused with candlelight and singing. So why did it hurt almost as much as the silence?

_St. Stephen, pray for us. St. Lawrence, pray for us. St. Vincent, pray for us..._

Sam closed his eyes and focused on the atmosphere around him, until he could feel it in his blood, like the whole world reaching, crying, pleading for a light to banish the darkness. He pulled it into himself and let it commiserate with the tattered thing his soul had become.

_From the snares of the devil, Lord, save your people. From anger, hatred and all ill-will, Lord, save your people. From lightening and tempest, Lord save your people..._

He hung on the edges of the crowd, slipped through the shadows beneath the stained glass, listened with half an ear to the service as it continued. He hadn't completely lost his agnostic curiosity, but it wasn't as strong as it had been in the past.

The Mass climaxed and ended. People streamed from pews, filtering out into the cold, donning scarves and gloves and hats. Parents carried sleeping children. Families held whispered conversations. Musicians collected their things and left. Ushers were handing out drinks and cookies in the atrium, little cups of warmth to carry through the night.

Sam was staring at a figure in one of the windows, trying idly to remember what Pastor Jim had told him about the three-two arrangement of the fingers, when the nun appeared at his elbow and thrust a glass of eggnog into his hands.

"Trust me, it's better than the store bought stuff," she said off his look. "The secret is the raw eggs and bourbon."

He took a hesitant sip. It was fluffy and cold, but it went down smooth and warm, leaving the taste of nutmeg behind.

"Thanks," he said, surprised. She nodded.

"I like this window," she said, staring up at it thoughtfully.

"Why's that?"

"It's the only nativity scene we have. Supposed to be a happy image, and it is, for the most part. Joseph and the kings and shepherds are all looking at the Christ child, smiling. But look at Mary. She's the only one not looking at the manger."

Sam followed the sad figure's gaze to a lamb at the very bottom of the window. Its feet were bound with ropes. It looked dead.

"The lamb represents Christ," the nun continued softly. "While everyone else is celebrating her son's birth, Mary is looking ahead and seeing his death."

They spent a few more moments regarding the window before she spoke up again.

"I'm Sister Barbara Michelle, by the way. Call me Mica."

"Michelle after St. Michael?" Sam guessed.

She nodded and started walking back to the rectory. Sam followed, his curiosity piqued. He was pretty sure Pastor Jim had said something at one point about nuns picking the saints they were named after. St. Michael was a pretty obvious choice, but he didn't know the story on the other one.

"And Barbara?"

Mica glanced back at him as she pushed open the heavy oak door that led to the rectory. A full-faced grin transformed her features for just a fraction of a second.

"Patron saint of ammo. She blesses all my handloads. So. Tell me what you've got on this demon."


	6. Dancing in the Dark

**Chapter 6: Dancing in the Dark**

_I'll shake this world off my shoulders;  
Come on, baby, this laugh's on me.  
-Bruce Springsteen_

"What are you doing?"

Sam looked up.

"Um. Getting some Coke?" he offered, taken aback by the cold horror in Mica's voice.

He had barely registered her movement before the can was slipping through his fingers, leaving them cold and empty. He looked at them, then looked at her. She stood a few feet away, clutching the half-opened pop as if it were a bazooka snatched from the clutches of a madman.

"What?"

You were going to pour that in your glass," she said flatly, as if it explained something.

"Ye-es," he replied, drawing it out into two very confused syllables.

He received the internationally-recognized body language for "the _fuck_?" in response. He was too confused to do anything but give it right back.

"You were going to _cut_ Kentucky bourbon!"

Sam spent a moment trying to reconcile her words with her tone. He knew she'd just objected to bourbon and Coke, but it _sounded_ like she'd accused him of eating puppies for breakfast.

"Um," he objected eloquently.

"You wanna cut something? Cut Jack. Cut Wild Turkey. Hell, cut this Canadian goat piss," Mica exclaimed wildly, pulling bottles out of the liquor cabinet and setting them on the table with punctual _thunk_s. "For Christ's sake, don't cut _Maker's_."

Another cabinet banging open, another _thunk_ on the table and his half-full glass was replaced with an empty one. Almost as an afterthought, Mica set the Coke next to it.

Sam expected her to toss back the confiscated bourbon like his brother used to toss back tequila shots, but she sipped it instead, rolling it over her tongue and down her throat like honey.

When she'd finished her brief love affair, she picked up the pile of travelworn papers on the counter by the door.

"I'm going to scan these and send them to Ash," she said, her tone suspicious, as if she suspected him of plotting further offenses to her delicate alcoholic sensibilities while she was upstairs. "If anybody can make sense of your dad's research, he can."

Then she was gone and Sam lowered himself into a chair, shaking his head and laughing softly, incredulously. Sometimes it was all he could do.

He poured an ounce or two of rejected alcohol into his glass and filled the rest with cola. He could still taste the ethanol under the carbonation, but it went down easier and was absorbed quicker.

His stomach warmed, but his thoughts slowed and he pushed the glass away. Talking about the demon had meant talking about his father and he just felt chewed up on the inside. He knew better than to think that whisky could touch that.

He hated Dad for what he had done. Hated him and never wanted to see him again. Loved him and just wanted him back.

Dean had been strangely silent on the subject of their father. He had an opinion about everything else, but when Sam's thoughts drifted to John Winchester, a wall slammed down between the brothers and Dean's spirit became an impenetrable, electric presence, all power and no emotion.

Sam tried not to think about Dad very often.

He started putting bottles away and wondered why nogged eggs were okay but Coke got him a visit from the Bourbon Police. Wondered how much of Mica's performance had been a joke. Just like he had wondered lately how much of Dean's frequent performances had been (still were?) jokes. The world they lived in was so full of the fight it was hard to tell sometimes where the dark humor ended and the madness began.

People like Mica and Dean watched the world through damaged eyes. Their souls were casualties of war. Sometimes a flippant remark was all they had.

_"I know what we have to do, where we have to go next," Dean is saying._

_Sam feels a chill run down his spine. He wants to be sick but he also wants to _know_. "Where?"_

_"Vegas."_

_And Dean is grinning that silly grin at him and Sam just cannot fucking _believe_ him._

_It doesn't hit him until later. Until he realizes that he's been so busy thinking about what an idiot _ass_ his brother is that he hasn't worried over his freaky psychic powers for at least fifty miles._

Sam didn't know how to do it. He had spent too much of his life trying to be normal, trying to fit in. He didn't know if that made him more or less crazy.

* * *

By the time Mica reappeared, he had removed himself to the library and was starting on an eighteenth-century Spanish exorcism manual. 

Arma virumque cano,_ said the poet Virgil to begin the secular narrative of a bloody battle..._

"I have to go kill something. Wanna come?"

Sam tore his gaze from the book and looked up at Mica, who was standing next to the armchair he'd settled in. His eyes didn't have to travel far. It wasn't that she was short, it was just that he was...

_"...a friggin' giant," Dean says, rooting around in his duffel for a shirt that isn't bloodstained. "The bed isn't too short. Your legs are too long, freak."_

_Sam makes a face and stretches one more time before rolling out of the tiny bed. "No, the bed is too short. And you're just jealous because you stunted your growth drinking a two-liter of Mountain Dew every day for five years."_

The memory came to mind sharply, unbidden. It was painful and comforting and Sam was sure it had come from Dean. Dean, whose spirit had so far been confined to the Impala. His breath hitched and he reached out with whatever weird psychic sense it was that allowed him to communicate (however brokenly) with his brother.

The presence was faint, but definitely there. He was still in a humorous mood. Or maybe he was trying to cheer Sam up. Or both. Sam could never tell because it was such a one-way street most of the time: Sam's life was an open book to Dean, but all Sam got from his older brother were the tight, controlled glimpses that Dean managed, with effort, to push through the veil.

It was a lot like it had been when Dean was alive, really.

"You okay?"

Sam blinked, came back to himself. Saw Mica staring at him, wary and reticently concerned.

"Yeah, I'm fine."

"So, you coming?"

Her face was unreadable, her voice businesslike, but there was something (was it his imagination?) that made it feel like a plea.

_He's gone, he's gone, and I can't do this without him, I can't..._

"I'll drive," Sam said.


	7. Reaching the Sea

**A/N: **Sorry I'm late! I had a monster migraine yesterday.

**Chapter 7: Reaching the Sea**

_Then as it was,  
Then again it will be.  
An' though the course  
May change sometimes,  
Rivers always reach the sea.  
-Led Zeppelin_

"Never heard of them." Sam pushed the Impala up to ninety. It felt strange to be the one driving on the way to a hunt. That was Dean's job. Sam was supposed to be in Mica's place, summarizing hours of research.

"They're rare. You remember Lilith? The other wife of Adam who steals children from their cradles?"

"Yeah. You telling me she's real too?"

"Don't know. But her Hebrew name is a cognate of _lilim_. They're Sumerian and they have the same MO. Only lilim are described as masculine, the spirits of young men who died before they could have children."

"Supernatural SIDS."

"Yeah."

"So how do you kill them?"

Mica sighed. "Well, last time we..." She paused at the reminder of Jim, but that small hitch was her only betrayal. "We tried some Akkadian rituals, some protective charms and symbols. Holy water had no effect. The salt kept it out, but they have ways of getting around that."

"What kind of ways?"

"They can get inside your head. Make you see things... The last time this happened we figured out the pattern and warned Agatha. She saved her daughter, but it cost her."

"But you got it eventually?"

"Yeah. Silver. Goddamn simple thing like silver." Mica looked out the window, watched the shadows racing by. "But it's back now, so it must not have killed it. Just slowed it down for a while."

There were a few quick seconds of silence before she spoke up again.

"The thing I don't get is...why's it after Lucy again? She's a toddler now. These things go after newborns."

Sam heard what she wasn't saying. The frustration, laced with just a little irrational guilt. The fear, the lack of control.

"Well, we'll just have to slow it down again. Do some more research. Here?"

"Yeah," Mica replied, her jaw set firmly. "This'll put us on 169. Head south."

The Impala's tires burned against the road as he took the turn and roared off down the highway.

* * *

Sam wasn't sure if it was his own impulse or a nudge from Dean, but he grabbed the amulet from the rearview mirror and slung it around his neck before he followed Mica into the house. It was comforting, in a painful sort of way.

There were Christmas lights draped over the bushes in front of the porch, icicles of light dangling from the gutters. A Christmas tree visible through the window. No indication of what was going on inside.

Hunting without Dean. Picking up a job in the middle of tracking down the bastard demon that killed his brother.

It was all a little surreal.

They slipped inside quietly, cautiously. It seemed a bit anticlimactic after the wild rush to get there in time, but Sam knew it was just good sense not to go charging in.

They moved through the hallway silently, weapons drawn and pointed to the floor. Mica took the lead, checking each dark, quiet room as they passed, until there was only a bedroom left. She nudged the door open with her foot.

Moonlight slanted in through the wispy curtains on the window, providing just enough illumination to distinguish indistinct shapes. A woman was kneeling in front of a crib, inside the line of salt she had poured around herself and her baby.

She was facing a shadow.

The creature looked vaguely human in the dim light, but it was too fluid to be flesh. It moved like the shadow it was, all silence and grace.

Sam and Mica entered the room and stopped a few feet from the tableau, guns still lowered.

"Agatha?" Mica called.

The woman didn't respond. She just stared straight ahead, features twisted in pain, jaw clenched like she was being set on fire but refused to move. She was trembling, and sweat trickled down her face.

"Agatha."

The woman gave a sort of sobbing moan, delivered through gritted teeth.

"I can't...not again...I know...I _know_, but I can't..."

"It's going to be okay, Agatha," Mica said. Then to Sam, "We have to break contact before we shoot it."

Sam nodded his understanding without looking away from the thing in the center of the room. It showed no signs of having noticed the two hunters, but Sam knew that didn't mean shit.

"As soon as she looks away," Mica instructed.

Sam nodded again.

No one and nothing moved as the nun crept up to the salt circle and, without disturbing it, turned Agatha's head from the shadow's gaze. The woman cried out in pain, in relief, and buried her face in Mica's shoulder.

Sam took the shot as soon as it was available, but the creature moved too quickly and the slug thudded into the opposite wall. He had a disturbing flashback to the night he had pulled the Colt's trigger in the nursery of a six-month-old child. The shadow flickered and dissipated. Then, like lightening, it was coming straight for him. He had no time to adjust his line of fire.

But he didn't need to. The shadow veered away from him as if stung, and headed for Mica instead. Shadow arms and legs gripped limbs of flesh, ripping her from Agatha and pinning her to the wall. Sam half-raised his Beretta, but couldn't get a clear shot.

He didn't see where Mica pulled the knife from. It flashed silver in the moonlight and slipped soundlessly into the creature's flesh. The shadow screeched and dropped her to the floor. With a smooth movement which continued that momentum, Mica flattened herself against the carpet.

Sam didn't hesitate. Gunfire cracked through the room and this time the shadow didn't fade quickly enough. Another angry, painful cry and it was moving again, wounded but not dead.

When it rematerialized, it was already inside the reach of Sam's arms. He had barely started to move back and try to get a shot when the dark figure was again diverted, hissing like a dying man's breath as it shied away from his neck. It abandoned its semi-solid state and flickered back out of sight.

In that split second, Sam realized two things. The first was that the lilu had flinched when it came near him. The second was that the salt circle had been disturbed by the attack on Mica.

He didn't need to see the creature reforming out of the corner of his eye to realize that it was going straight for the kid. There was no way for anyone to make it there in time. So, Sam did the only thing he could think of (although, to be truthful, his spinal cord was doing most of the thinking).

He tore Dean's amulet from his chest and tossed it into the crib.

The creature recoiled and shrieked in frustration, its unearthly voice so high-pitched that Agatha had to drop the salt and cover her ears. Mica had regained her feet, but couldn't get a shot on the thing because both the baby and the mother were too close.

Sam now had only his reflexes to protect him from the creature when it turned on him.

It was nowhere near enough to save his life.

This time, it was Sam who found himself pinned to the wall, while Mica raised her gun uselessly. The shadow limbs were like ice against his flesh, digging deep into his bones with death-like cold. He had managed to hold on to his Beretta, but it wasn't going to do him much good pointed at the ceiling. The thing was lowering its faceless head to his and it felt a lot like the time he'd almost had his soul sucked out by a shtriga, except this time Dean wouldn't be there to save him.

_And who's fault is that?_ the survivor's guilt whispered in that timeless moment before death. He was tired, so tired of everyone around him dying. He had lost everyone he'd ever cared about. There was nothing left except revenge, and that really wasn't much. Not enough keep him from feeling relieved as the strength left his body.

_It's another memory, except this time Sam's seeing it for the first time. There's a girl, the hospital, Dean's voice.._

_"No offense, but...that's crap. You _always_ have a choice. Now, you can either lie down and die, or..."_

Sam felt it coming before he saw it, like the static prickle before a lightening strike. Then an enormous streak of black slammed past him and flattened the lilu like a freight train. Sam gasped as the spikes of grave-cold were torn from his body. It took him no more than a fraction of a second to steady himself and raise his gun, but when he did, there was nothing to shoot at. Mica, on the other side of the room, had come to the same conclusion and was simply staring.

The lilu was struggling with another shadowy spirit-creature. It was trying to dissipate and flee, but its attacker held it fast, all claws and teeth and luminescent eyes. The sound of its throaty snarls filled the room like ten Rottweilers fighting over the same bone, while the lilu shrieked in pain. It was a short, brutal fight.

As the lilu lost its strength, things slowed down enough for the newcomer to be clearly visible. It was a gigantic black dog, at least as long as a man, with a head that was almost as wide as Sam's chest. It had locked its enormous jaws on the lilu's throat and was squeezing hard, still snarling like a hellhound.

The lilu dissipated for the final time, melting and corporealizing into a pile of brownish-yellow bones. The dog's teeth clicked shut on empty air as they tumbled to the floor. It stopped its snarling and poked its nose around in them, as if to ensure that they were no longer a threat. Then it raised its head and sniffed derisively.

"Jesus Christ," Mica breathed, and it could have been a curse or a prayer.

The huge head swiveled towards Sam and the golden eyes bored into his. Recognition drove away the fear and suddenly it was all Sam could do to stay on his feet.

He knew that look. It was the one they always shared when things got hairy but turned their way in the end. It was lingering adrenaline and fierce pride. It was the Winchesters' way of screaming _fuck you_ at the dark.

It meant that Dean still had Sam's back, on the hunt or not.

Sam swore one of the golden eyes winked before the apparition flickered away.


	8. Running on Empty

**A/N 2/4/07: **Okay, I'm a horrible person. I've been trying for two weeks to write another chapter and it's not working because I think Eight was the last one (and not as revisable as I thought - made a few minor edits, added some GNR lyrics at the end, but I don't know what else to do with it). Turns out this fic is a three-parter and I've reached the end of the first part. I'll need a little time to get the second part going. It'll be Sam and Dean on the road. The third part will feature John's return and a showdown with the demon. Theoretically. I might have to get some other fics out of my system first, though. What can I say? Life's a bitch. Throw me a line if you have preferences; I have a list of current and possible projects on my profile page.

**Chapter 8: Running on Empty**

_You know, I don't even know  
What I'm hoping to find.  
Running into the sun,  
But I'm running behind.  
-Jackson Browne_

Sam leaned against the car and stared at his feet.

The winter wind was freezing his insides, but he didn't care. The cold was numbing, and he didn't want to feel anything if he couldn't feel Dean. Without his brother's spirit to fill the hollows, Sam knew he would collapse and melt.

So he let it blow against him, let it swirl the snow across his shoes and flip his laces back and forth over his work boots.

He heard Mica's footsteps crunching down the front walk. He didn't look up when she spoke to him.

"Did you get rid of the bones?"

Sam nodded at his shoes. Heard Mica shift her weight.

"Don't think Agatha should be alone tonight. Could you...take care of something for me and come back after dawn?"

Sam slowly drew his gaze up to hers, trying to concentrate on the words.

"Take care of what?" he asked thickly, and he could tell from the pause, from her unblinkingly blank expression that the cold, empty places inside him were showing. He didn't care.

"Some volunteers are coming to the church in a few hours to pick up presents and shit. Somebody needs to be there to open the building and help load the truck." She handed him a set of keys. "The packages are under the tree to the left of the altar."

He stared at the keys for a moment before he pocketed them.

"Okay."

"Here," she said, and handed him something else. He felt cool stone and metal in his fingers. Dean's amulet. "Where'd you find a charm against lilim?"

"I didn't," Sam replied, eyes on the object in his hand. "My brother...this was his. I just brought it along for...luck, you know?"

He could tell from her eyes that she did. They both knew there was no such thing as luck. You got shit before it got you or you didn't. Simple as that. Simple as Sam being alive and Dean being dead. Simple as a demon's obscure plans plotting out Sam's life. No such thing as a coincidence. No room for error or ignorance.

But sometimes it was nice to have something to hold on to.

"Um." Sam cleared his throat before continuing. He was coming back to himself as he talked. "You know how you said that lilim are supposed to be the spirits of men who died before they had children?"

"Yeah?"

"Maybe that makes them vulnerable to representations like this."

"Oh, the horns. Fertility symbols."

"Yeah." Sam paused, remembering. "Dean had this for almost as long as I can remember. I always assumed it was for protection from spirits or something, but he told me one time that he carried it to get laid. I thought he was just jerking my chain."

"Maybe he was. Sometimes lies just happen to be true."

Sam nodded, looking away.

"I'll come back after sunrise," he said as he opened the driver's side door.

He felt Mica's eyes on him as he drove away.

Sam cranked up AC/DC on his way back to church, even though he hated AC/DC. It didn't help as much as he hoped it would. It didn't replace Dean's presence, but he left it on anyway. When he reached St. Michael's he fled to the rectory and downed a shot of the goat piss Mica had recommended. No Coke this time. He coughed once and collapsed into a chair, long legs sticking out in all directions, face buried in his folded elbows.

Dean had destroyed the lilu. He knew that. Dean was still with him. He knew that.

It didn't feel like it.

That pilot light in the back of Sam's mind had flickered out when the apparition did. He hadn't been able to sense his brother's spirit since then and it was pulling him apart.

_A mother he's never known, never seen._

_"Get out of my house. And let go of my son."_

_There's fire everywhere and the invisible pressure holding him against the wall dissipates. He knows what's happened but he won't believe it until Missouri confirms it later._

_"The energy of your mother's spirit and the poltergeist cancelled each other out."_

He sat where he was for hours, not sleeping, not awake. When he heard someone pounding on the door, he opened it and let them in. Carried packages without speaking. Ignored the puzzled looks, the questions about Sister Barbara. He knew if he spoke, he would scream, rage against them for their ignorance, their innocence, their normalcy. For being alive when his brother was dead. For living in sunlight and not even seeing the shadow world that lurked behind it.

He walked the church like a ghost, staring at the dark windows, waiting for sunrise. The eastern light lit them on fire and splashed shafts of color all across the marble floor and granite pillars.

Sam floored the accelerator when he left the parking lot. He burned rubber and slammed gears.

The silence was ear-splitting.

* * *

"Sam!"

He turned his head and forced his eyes to focus on Mica. She was giving him that look - the one Dean had generally replaced in favor of a "Sam wears women's underwear." This time Sam hadn't been listening. He had no idea how many times Mica had called him or how long he'd been staring out the window.

"Agatha's going to be fine, not that you seem to care," Mica said as she rummaged in the fridge for Christmas breakfast.

Sam hesitated for a moment, then decided to ignore the second part of that sentence.

"That's good."

"We have to talk about what happened back there," the nun continued. She set out orange juice and peeled back a layer of aluminum foil from a loaf of banana nut bread.

Sam saw the suspicion in her eyes when she shot a glance his way. She'd had time to think about it. Time for the adrenaline to run its course and the pieces to come together into a coherent picture.

She knew.

"That was a black dog," Mica said sternly when he couldn't find a reply. "A damn strong one. That wasn't no barely sentient byproduct of too many deaths in one place. It wasn't no grim. That was a black dog manifestation of a single powerful spirit. A _corporeal_ manifestation."

She was cutting the bread into thin slices and putting them on a plate. She managed to make the action somehow aggressive.

Sam turned back to the window and watched the snow fall. He didn't really see the point of arguing. She knew where Dean was buried. She knew enough about the supernatural to put two and two together. And he was too tired of the silence in his head to fight her.

"You didn't burn your brother's bones, did you?"

He knew he didn't need to say anything. He could hear the certainty in her voice. He could hear the accusation. He could hear her digging Jim's grave and lighting his body on fire. Letting him go.

"He asked me not to," Sam whispered.

Mica set a plate of cream cheese on the table and frowned at him.

"That doesn't make it right," she said, her tone moderated somewhat.

"I know."

She paused for a moment. Opened her mouth once and closed it before speaking with forced casualness.

"The demon that killed Jim...that was Meg, right?"

Sam looked at her, thrown by the change in subject. She did not meet his eyes.

"Yeah. Well, it was possessing Meg. We never did find out its name."

"And your brother, he was the one who promised he'd let her go and then exorcised her bitch ass anyway?"

"Yeah."

She ducked her head in the fridge again and emerged with a pineapple. Her knife made rhythmic thumps on the cutting board as she sliced it.

"I won't disturb that grave. And neither will anyone else. You have my word."

* * *

The call came after the last Mass.

Sam had spent the morning finding out that St. Michael's library didn't have any new information for him. He told Mica this as she returned from the church. She was telling him he was welcome to stay as long as he wanted when the phone rang.

"It's Ash," Mica said, and put it on speaker. Sam bolted from the armchair to listen.

"Never seen nobody track a demon like this," said the tinny voice with the cartoon cracker accent. "But fuck me if it don't work."

"So you know where the demon is?" Sam asked, his heart pounding.

"I can tell you where it's not. The tracking method's solid, but this boy's moved on. Or layin' low. There's no sign of 'em. Anywhere. Just...poof. Gone."

Beer bottles clinked in the background as Sam digested this.

"How can you be sure you're tracking it right?"

"I'm sure, man." Ash belched. "And if this demon shows his ugly-ass face again, I'll know."

"You'll call me if that happens?"

"Sure. But you owe me a beer the next time you're in Nebraska."

The line clicked, and Sam exhaled.

"Sorry," Mica commiserated.

Sam nodded in response. "Thanks for your help. I guess I...better get going."

Mica looked like she was about to say something, but changed her mind and settled for a nod.

* * *

The Impala growled as Sam opened her up on I-90.

St. Michael's was comforting, in a way, but he knew he would have suffocated there. Dean was gone. The trail had ended. He had neither brother nor revenge. Movement was the only thing that would keep him together. Centripetal force.

Was this why Dean had never argued when Dad moved them from one place to another? Was this why he'd always been so eager to find the next job, to make the next town before they stopped for the night? Was this why Dean had never, ever stopped running? To keep his own inertia from breaking him during the deceleration?

Sam didn't know. He still couldn't feel Dean. So he drove. He saw nothing but blacktop and gas stations for almost twelve hours. He drove into the setting sun as if he could catch it before he was left in the dark alone.

But he wasn't alone. When the dark came, so did his brother. The moon rose and Dean's presence flooded the car just in time to prevent Sam from falling asleep at the wheel and playing chicken with a big-rig.

Sam felt rough hands pushing his shoulders, pulling on his shirt. He opened his eyes long enough to register that he was somehow stretched out on the bench seat in the back. It was familiar and comfortable and he didn't question it. Just closed his eyes and obeyed the voice he heard just as he drifted off.

_Get some sleep, little brother. I'll drive._

* * *

_So nobody ever told you, baby,  
How it was gonna be.  
What'll happen to us, baby?  
Guess you'll have to wait and see.  
-Guns N' Roses  
_


End file.
